My Future Resort (p1) - Intro

There are a lot of people who dream of someday owning their own nudist resort, but for many resort owners it's not the relaxing job that they were expecting. Some venues are finding success with the rise of clothing-optional recreation, while many are operating on a shoestring budget and just doing well enough to survive (mostly by hard work from the owner). If I had a clean slate and some seed money, here's how I would build my future venue.

The ideas presented in this series are free for anyone to use. Some might be brilliant and just what a venue needs, while others may not work. All venues are currently working towards "local maximas", and are in need of some mutation in order to find the "global maxima". (huh?) If you don't care about the theory details, ignore the paragraphs in italics for this series.

Genetic algorithms, a model based on evolution, make a great way to illustrate the life-cycle of venues. Draw a squiggly horizontal line. The top of the highest hump is the global maxima -- leave that one alone for now. Somewhere along the line in one of the other humps, put a dot, and label it "Terra Cotta Inn". This hump represents the luxury resorts. One of the other humps can represent the campgrounds, etc. Now, a lot of copycats that are similar to the Terra Cotta Inn open up, all with slightly different features. They would be represented by dots that are very close to the Terra Cotta. Some might be higher up, and be better. Some end up being lower, not as good, and will eventually die out (just like the weakest animals via natural selection). Keep repeating this process with the new venues, and the dots will get closer and closer to the "perfect" top of the hump. They have hit the local maxima, and can't possibly be any better at what they do.

But wait, the global maxima is still out there! It might not have the typical look and feel of a luxury resort, or campground, but it is a place or process where everyone is happier. If the dots only work their way to the top of their respective humps, how can they find this new, unexplored, and possibly better hump? The answer is mutation, by disruptive technology, to put a dot in a random place along the line mentioned above. Mutation occurred when people thought up the radical ideas of a nude cruise on a huge ship, or creating a clothing-optional city, both of which have been successful and are creeping up to their local maximas. Other mutations die out quickly, like those clothing optional flights to nudist destinations. As a result of this series, I hope that a higher rate of mutation occurs in the industry, so we can find local maximas quicker and maybe even hit the global one. If not, I'll just have to open up my own resort and enjoy my theory-driven success.

This series is a collection of my radical ideas, and how they have been coming together into a fresh approach to nudist venues. Sometimes a fresh approach is all we need to break out of tradition and end up with a better solution. I hope that you all take these ideas with an open mind, and participate in developing them via the comments. (I may eventually move these to a Thinkcycle-type page on the WWNCW.)

It's hard to stay on specific topics with this series, because they all become so intertwined. There are 7 main posts, one of which is split into 4 posts because it's a big topic. There will likely be more than that, and the whole series will remain a work in progress as new ideas emerge or improve. I'll probably be posting addendums for years... For now though, I have them scheduled to be published on Friday mornings each week for the next couple of months. This way, you can take the weekend to ponder the ideas, and consider what you could do to help your local venues.

The next post will be a brainstorming session, but after that I plan to write some well-thought-out ideas and provide supporting evidence of how they might work.

Outline:

1. This Intro
2. Land
3. Sustainability
1. Water
2. Electric
3. Heat and AC
4. Diversification
5. Economics of Crowdsourcing
6. Resource Sharing
7. Community Involvement

Parts 2, 3, and some of 4 deal with the physical layout of the resort, and how to make it efficient. Parts 4, 5, 6, and 7 deal with the social framework. See all parts (and future parts) by clicking the tag "future_resort" in the right-side menu. There is no conclusion for the series, so hopefully you can put the concepts together yourself as you read.

From my perspective, the social frameworks for resorts are in more need of help than the physical layout. As my game theory book author describes: "Nobody would ever propose constructing an aeroplane or a bridge without giving a great deal of thought to how the mechanism would stand up to the stresses and strains it will face when built, but the idea that one should give the same care and attention to the design of social mechanisms is typically greeted with scorn."

I might just be the first person to put such serious thought into improving the social aspects of naturist venues. In my mind, alternative methods exist and they solve a bunch of problems that resorts currently face. (These are described in parts 4+.) I would love the opportunity to test these new methods and see how they stand up to the stresses and strains they will face, even if I have to build a resort myself.

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